The Lottery and Other Stories (Modern Library)

A haunting and powerful collection of stories from one of America's finest writers, with a new Introduction by Patrick McGrath. Eerie, unforgettable, and by turns terrifying and hilarious, Shirley Jackson's collection of stories plunges us into a unique, brilliantly etched world where the uncanny lurks in the everyday and where nothing is quite what it seems. In "The Lottery," Jackson's most famous work and one of the greatest--and scariest--stories of the twentieth century, a small town gathers for an annual ritual that culminates in a terrible event. In "The Daemon Lover," a woman waits, then searches, for the man she is to marry that day, only to find that he has disappeared as completely as if he had never existed. In "Trial by Combat," a shy woman confronts her kleptomaniac neighbor, and in "Pillar of Salt," a tourist in New York is gradually paralyzed by a city grown nightmarish. Throughout these twenty-five tales, we move through a variety of emotional landscapes full of loneliness and humor, oddity and cruelty, banality and terror, and searing psychological insight. No reader will come away unaffected. The only collection to appear during Jackson's lifetime, The Lottery and Other Stories reveals the full breadth and power of this truly original writer.

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From the Back Cover:

"Jackson's great gift is not to create a world of fantasy and terror, but rather to discover the existence of the grotesque in the ordinary world. The grotesque is so powerful here just because it takes off from everyday life and constantly returns there until we do not know ourselves quite where we are." --Elizabeth Janeway

About the Author:

Shirley Jackson, born in 1919, was the author of numerous books, including Hangsman, Life Among the Savages, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. For the last twenty years of her life, until her death in 1965, she lived in North Bennington, Vermont.

Book Description Modern Library, 2000. Book Condition: New. Brand New, Unread Copy in Perfect Condition. A+ Customer Service! Summary: The definitive collection of Shirley Jackson's stories, these are haunting, powerful tales of strangeness and terror lurking within the seemingly familiar. Jackson's writing unnerves and captivates; her scenes and characters are crafted with searing psychological insight; and her themes - loneliness and frustration, prejudice and hypocrisy, the grotesque within the ordinary, are crafted in a beautiful, sparse, wholly unique style. 'The Jackson's most famous story (and it was both tremendously popular and highly controversial when published), but this collection reveals the full range of Jackson's work - all of it equally compelling. Bookseller Inventory # ABE_book_new_0679640398